Tag Archives: experimental

Walking Shoes

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

I think I should start a new category under Poetry Themes. I’ll call it “Experimental.”
This poem belongs in that category.

Recently, I noticed that specific locations get attached to my memory of significant conversations (see “Entertaining Possibilities“). In today’s poem, I explore how an object gets attached in the same way, in this case, “walking shoes.” There’s a particularly poignant memory I have of a conversation with a friend. He/she had come to the realization that they must leave–“walk away from”–something they loved. We were meeting for a casual stroll, but as I approached our rendezvous point, I could tell from a distance that something was amiss. My friend was wearing dress shoes, not walking shoes.

I set out to write a poem about that memory, not knowing where it was going to go, except that I must guard my friend’s privacy. By the end of the third stanza, I had told all I felt safe telling. Was it enough? Would the reader be upset that I ended so abruptly, and without resolution? I don’t know. I’m still thinking about that. Comment below, if you have an opinion.

Here’s another question that this poem raises for me: Does the mind routinely intermingle literal and figurative meanings (in this case, two uses of “walk”)?

Children explore their world and the questions it raises by playing. I’m “all grown up,” but I still explore my world by playing in a sandbox called poetry.

_________

Blank Smiles

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

“Unsaid” That’s the word my little poet brain wants to supply. And I struggle with the blank, the silence. How about you?

It’s no coincidence that this poem came to mind after I spent time with some exceptionally bright AND wise people.

Did this little poem break a sacred rule of poetry? The ghosts of Emily Dickinson and E. E. Cummings are here saying, “It’s okay, Brad. It’s okay.”

Rescue

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

I am exploring the idea that man was created for God’s approval, and nothing short of that will satisfy.

Approval seems like a low bar… until you contemplate the alternative. Now imagine an eternal “Yes!” when all you’ve heard is “No.”

#glory #approval #esteem #maslow #hierarchy

(background image based on a painting by Martina Bulková on Pixabay)

An Easy Chair of Boxes

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

THIS IS ACTUALLY A SERIOUS POEM

Let’s see if I can explain it as well as I did to my wife….

I’m aware of a tendency to arrange the facts as I perceive them in a self-serving way. This is dangerous when it comes to Bible interpretation. It leads to distortions. For example, consider how a white, slave-holding Christian(?) man in the antebellum South interpreted Scripture. Naturally, he interpreted Scripture in a way that justified his evil ways. We are constantly in danger of doing the same thing, not about slavery, but in other ways where we elevate ourselves at others’ expense.

So, whenever my Bible interpretation has me smelling like a rose—or sitting pretty in an easy chair—I ask if I may be arranging the boxes to my own advantage. That’s the theory; God make it fully so!

#selfseeking#hermeneutics#myadvantage#mortonsalt#grandsaline

(background image by “falco” on Pixabay)

Simon the Exploiter

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

In my crawl through Acts, I have just about made it through chapter 8. Once again, Luke is telling a story that contrasts GENEROSITY (God’s generosity, reflected in selfless servants) with GREED (here it is Simon the Magician’s apparent desire to exploit God’s generosity).

Question: is it possible Simon was a true believer? Was he saved in Luke’s account? Does Luke actually want us to struggle with this question? He leaves off with Simon declining to do the one thing Peter requires of him: personally repent and pray for God’s forgiveness.

#acts8 #simonmagus #simony #greed #exploitation #repentance

MIDNIGHT ABLUTIONS OF A PENSIVE RACCOON

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

I sit on a rock on the bank of the stream, by the light of the moon methodically washing my midnight snack.

I’m thinking back to an earlier time, when darkness fell on the farmer’s shack….

Seated on a well-worn balustrade, I watched the farmer through slits in a dusty window shade. He sat on a chair at the kitchen table. By light of a lantern, he methodically penned. Poetry, I suppose.

With far less writing than scratching of head, he’d occasionally put pencil to paper and thoughtful compose.

Finally, he set down his pencil, snuffed out the lantern, and waddled to bed.

My careful ablutions are now complete.

It’s “Good night” to you, and to me, a pensive “Bon appétit.”

— Brad Hepp, 8/9/2023

(image adapted from original by Wolfgang Deckers on Pixabay)

#raccoons #thoughtfulwriting #pondering #poetry #turnthetables #rolereversal

Prosaic Parrot

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

“How do you like to be addressed,” I asked. “I’ve read enough to know three dozen ways.”

“Dance!” he said, “Or sing… with moves and melody no other child has ever brought, or even thought to bring.”

“Don’t you care for words?”

“They’re fine,” he said, “but only if you join those words in such a way as shows they’re what you really mean.”

“Lord…” I said.

“Lord!” he cut me short. “Why do you call me ‘Lord’? If that is what I really am to you, there are at least three dozen other things that mean as much to you and more.”

“Am I—could you say—what brings you pleasure?
Am I what you crave?
Am I, on your ev’ry map, the ‘X’ that marks out treasure?”

“Am I not
To you
What you
Have always been
To me?”

“Or do I merit only prose,
While you’re my poetry?”

— Brad Hepp, 5/19/2023

COMMENT
Wow. That turned a whole lot darker than I intended. I have been thinking about the huge spectrum of creativity available to us in worshiping God, and how little we bother to—or sometimes think we’re allowed to—employ. But the darkness of this poem may be deserved, as it turns out. Is mouthing “Hallelujah!” really a suitable stand-in for praise, or is it a bouquet of wilted flowers?

Full disclosure…. I wrote this poem after reviewing an older poem where I personified Beauty. I wondered then—as I often do—if people with a sense of propriety narrower than my own will judge me for using metaphors they don’t find in the Bible. Is Jesus rightly called “Beauty” incarnate? Am I free to create my own names for the Creator? I’ll probably insist on sanctified creativity to the day I die. In fact, I suspect it’s my special responsibility as a poet. For God the Poet’s sake, I should double down!

#singanewsong #prosaic #poetic #trueworship #ephesians2v10 #youarehispoetry

(background image by Hans on Pixabay)

Imaginious, The Tragic Tale of a Boy With an Unlikely Name

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

Imagine how sad it would be for a person to grow up thinking they’re one thing when they’re really another. They might spend a lifetime missing out on the wonder of their true giftedness.

This was my first clear thought upon waking from dreams this morning. So I stayed in bed and wrote it down, in the form of a story. It’s partly the story of my life. Only my story doesn’t end in tragedy. Does yours?

I’ll have to confess one possible inspiration for this silly little story: the “Mr. Garvey” skits by the brilliant Key and Peele (warning — coarse language):

Railing

(if you are viewing this via email, the website has a recording of this poem and commentary; click the title above)

Commentary

On my walk yesterday, listening through Exodus, I heard this fascinating snippet:

And they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

Exodus 24:10‭-‬11

When I encounter passages like this one, I want to explore, to stop and study. Not necessarily to study in an academic way… more to gaze intently until my senses have taken in the scene, so that like Mary I may ponder in my heart. But there are voices—do I only imagine them?—who murmur “Move along, and stay behind the railing.”

The Poem’s Structure
I woke up this morning and initially wrote the last five lines. As often happens with me, something subconscious was giving the poem physical structure by creating a pattern of line lengths. When I see that happening, I try to follow through. The poem was taking the form of a mountain, but it needed a summit. So I inserted the first seven lines.

Docents
I have toured many a museum, and been thankful to many a docent for guiding me there. I mean no disrespect by picturing them in this poem as dripping clouds who live only to put out sparks of curiosity. What am I actually picturing? Dull, strangling systematic theology, at least as practiced by some.

(background image by TravelCoffeeBook on Pixabay)

Benedictus And The Meantime

Commentary

This poem came to mind as I listened to a performance of “Benedictus” by 2Cellos. I had heard the tune many times in the past, but never paid attention to its title.

This time was different. I was starting into a nap, being soothed by beautiful music. I had just returned from a public event where I felt horribly alienated. Frankly, a friendless freak.

As the tune started playing through my ear buds, I literally heard a slow faint beat, not of drums, but perhaps of cello bows changing direction as they sustained and grew the opening strain. Perhaps it was the bows, or perhaps it was the pulse in my ears from elevated blood pressure. I’ll have to listen with good speakers to figure that out. In any case, my heart was attuned to the playing of the cellos.

What is “Benedictus”?
Since I was listening on my smart phone, I did a quick search for what this Latin word might reference. There were two answers, both from excruciatingly beautiful passages in the Gospels. The first is from Zechariah’s words “Blessed be…” when Zechariah was moved by the birth of his son, John. We know him as “John the Baptist,” who prepared the way for Jesus:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David…

Luke 1:68-69

Such high expectations!

The next “benedictus” is from Matthew 21, where the story is told of Jesus’ “triumphal entry” to Jerusalem, just as his Passion Week began:

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Matthew 21:9

Such high expectations!

The Meantime
Jesus’ first coming was full of hope, both at its beginning, and at its end. But he ascended to the Father, and has not finished putting things in order, restoring His creation. Now, as we await his second coming, we are in the meantime. Someone has referred to it as the “in-between time.” I thought of using that phrase in the title, but opted for “meantime.” This is a time in-between, but it is also a time of meanness, a very mean time. Even those whom Jesus has brought into his family can feel rejected and lonely. As George MacDonald said somewhere, “The end of the Maker’s dream is not this.”


Tell Me Again…

I continue to be amazed by seeds. On my walk today, I saw these rubbery seed pods I had never noticed, or felt before, and then realized they are the seed of grape hyacinths, that were in full bloom a few weeks ago. More importantly, there’s something I’m trying to come to terms with: in this fallen world, not all that I think of as loss really IS loss. [I’m getting around to posting this two months after writing that last sentence. It’s a sentence that I’ll have to come back to many a time, to see how much better I understand the nascent thought]

Related Poem: False Flourishing

In Time Out of Mind

Commentary

A friend asked me if there should be a comma after time. Here’s what I told him:

The absence of a comma opens this up to at least three interpretations. I know this style’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Are you familiar with ee cummings’ “my father moved through dooms of love“? That poem brings me to tears whenever I read it.

The slight effort of getting past the absence of punctuation in cummings may add to its emotional impact. Speaking of tea…. Coffee is better than tea precisely for its body, that it slides down not so easily.

So, here are some pointers to meaning:

  • “In time” can mean “eventually”
  • “Time out of mind” is unimaginably long, think Eternity.
  • In a polarized world, it is always “us” versus “they” (deeper in grammar, “us” receives the malevolence that “they” inflict — objective vs subjective). I like to think of a time when there is such peace between a broad diversity of people, that all of us are “WE,” and we never even think of “THEM.”
  • Currently, things are not as they should be. Even at home, we know we are not where we wish to be. A time is coming when we’ll be where we long to be. Then and there, we’ll be at ease. Then and there we’ll be content with here and now.
  • Where will we be? In the presence of the One who is making all things new, the One who will satisfy our hopes and dreams. Now, He often seems distant. We refer to Him in second person, as “He.” Then we’ll address Him face-to-face as “You.”

“Change” Poems:

Previous: Pleasant Sadness
Next: Matters More and Less

Alone With My Thoughts

I guess every poet comes up with this one eventually.

This “poem” is not silly. In fact, I have never been more serious or intentional in anything I have written. It is not that I have no thoughts. Nor is it that I don’t want to share my thoughts with others. It is that there is no such thing as thoughts I have while “alone.” It may drive me to insanity, but I am determined to become consistent in my belief in an all-knowing and very present God. One of the worst hidden hypocrisies in my life has been holding the belief that I have “the ear” of the most powerful being (God) but not voicing my thoughts about others to Him. How many times I have scrolled through Facebook and thought this or that about my friends and acquaintances without “voicing” those thoughts to the One who can do something about my concerns? Do I see someone who is filling his or her life with hatred? Why would I not voice my concern about that to all-powerful God, the one best able to teach them love? Do I see someone hurting and reaching out to friends for comfort? Why would I not voice my sympathy to the great Comforter? Hypocrisy is usually associated with action. My hypocrisy has consisted of inaction.

Mr. Goodat and Pastor Good

We know these people. Sometimes we are these people.

I like this little piece, and I must laugh because as is sometimes the case, I seem to be one of the few people who likes it! Why do I laugh? Here is something I’ll have to explore: when I write something that gets good response, there’s a sense in which it belongs to the readers; when it’s something that does not get a good response, even though I like it, it remains my “private stash.” As I said more than once to my sons in their youth: “Oh, you don’t like it? Good. There’s more for me!”

Busyness

Listen:

Commentary

My son Joshua helped illustrate this poem. Let me first clarify that his artwork (and this style in general) is NOT the problem addressed by the poem. In fact, the process of drawing such a complex design can afford time and mental space to be contemplative, to “listen, feel, and face.”

Here’s how I tentatively explained the poem to Joshua (you may notice that I’m still struggling to understand this poem myself)….

“a tendency divine”
God designed us to relate to Himself, with creativity, a desire to work and build. But as with so many other things, we pervert those qualities. We abuse the qualities. Instead of finding a balance of work and rest, we work all the time. God offers a Sabbath, promising that He’ll supply what we would have produced in that period of rest. Instead, we work straight through. We also let the qualities draw attention to the creation instead of to the Creator. While we could stop to enjoy the complexity of His creations, we instead busy ourselves building and admiring our own creations. In a hundred other ways, we say to God, “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m kind of busy supplying for myself, expressing myself, making sure that others recognize how great I am. Catch you later, pal.”

“To fill each void”
Jesus wasn’t impressed with the elaborate prayers of religious would-be leaders. He taught his disciples to pray simple prayers of dependence. He wasn’t impressed with the self-satisfied, self-righteous, and judgmental religion of many grown ups, so He taught his discples they’d better come to Him with the simple dependance and delight that characterize children.

“We fear”
Why do we blow off the opportunity to breathe, to take it easy with our Heavenly Father? One reason may be that we don’t trust Him to prevent catastrophe. We think our security depends on us. Approaching the rim of a Grand Canyon, we doubt that He’ll hold our hand, and so we run back to the safety of the Visitor Center. There, surrounded by gee-gaws of plastic, we need not fear the hardness of rocks in the chasm below.

“In time, the power fails”
But God is a good Father. One way or another, He’ll take us to the rim. It may be when a storm damages the electrical grid. It may be when age, disease, or exhaustion leave us dependant on Him.

Grand Canyon photo by “Pexels” on Pixabay. I personally have never been to the Grand Canyon. It seems like a vast depression to me. Perhaps someday….

A Cautionary Tale

(of how we fill our lives)

He filled his pack with bubble wrap
And set off on the trail.
Thus equipped, the carefree sap
Was sure he could not fail.

So light his step,
Straight his back,
His shoulders fresh and strong…
Up steepest trail he fairly floated
Warbling his song:

“For times like these I was set free,
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”

Just as the sun
Behind the mountain
Took her cooling plunge,
Approaching alpine glade he sang,
“So high and far I’ve come;
Dee dum, dee dum, dee dum!”

Feasting eyes on matted grass
The clever lad observed,
“Here the elk bed down to sleep,
And therefore, so shall I.”

Lying there, in bubbles wrapped,
The lad soon fell asleep.
But wasn’t long into the night
That hunger pains began to gnaw,
Bitter cold to creep.

He reached into his empty pack
In search of something, any? thing?
Of all he did not bring
To serve as food and warmth.

Somewhere
In that frigid night
His soul above him floated,
Warbling her song:

“For times like these I was set free
So tell me not that I must care
For all your drudgery.
La di da, twiddle dee!
Like all the birds that sing above
For this I was set free!”

Then, looking down from whence she’d come,
“Die dumb, die dumb, die dumb!
On matted grass, eternal bed,
La he died — twiddle dead.”

– Brad Hepp (2019)

This silly poem was inspired by Psalm 16:2: “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my LORD; I have no good apart from you.'” How much of my day is spent pursuing “good” apart from the Lord, doing things that seem pleasant, but which He has not given me to do? Such folly invites the fate of a mountain climber who chooses to pack only what lightens his load.

As much as he’d probably prefer to deny it, Don Regier helped me with a few of the lines.

here’s the image I used for this poem